Stool transplants from ‘super donors’ could be a cure-all

Surjit kumar Dhal, Bhubaneswar, Jan 24: New research suggests that stools from so-called “super donors” have such rich microbial diversity that using them for fecal transplants could cure conditions ranging from inflammatory bowel disease to Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis.

Scientists have found that stool samples from ‘super donors’ hold the potential for curing a wide range of conditions, reports leading health magazine Medical News Today.

Recently, a growing number of studies have discovered diseases that are connected with changes in the gut’s microbiota.

Cancer, obesity, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder are only some of the conditions that researchers have linked with an imbalance in the bacterial composition of our gut.

This imbalance bears the name “dysbiosis,” and observational studies have noted a link between microbial dysbiosis and allergies, irritable bowel syndrome, and cardiovascular disease.

More recently, Medical News Today reported on research that found connections between gut bacteria and age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s or age-induced paralysis.

Many of the studies that have illuminated these connections have been conducted in germ-free mice. In these tests, researchers replaced the rodents’ gut microbiotas with healthier bacteria by performing fecal transplants from a healthy donor.

Physicians use the same procedure of stool transplantation in human clinical trials. But new research suggests that some stools are better than others — that is, so-called super donors have certain bacteria in their guts that can help restore the microbial diversity that is lost in conditions like inflammatory bowel disease and diabetes.

If researchers gain a better understanding of the mechanisms through which these super donor stool samples help cure chronic disease, fecal transplantation could be a safe and effective therapy for a wide range of illnesses.

With this rationale in mind, Justin O’Sullivan, Ph.D., of the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and colleagues set out to review existing clinical trials of fecal transplantation.

The team published its findings in the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology.